How is everybody doing at the online-whiteboard face?

[CatandtheFiddle]

Just thought I'd check in to see how academics are doing. Particularly after some pretty nasty trashings received by academic staff elsewhere.

How are you going with thinking through delivery of modules from September?

Or are we going to be required by our universities to risk our health in teaching incoming Freshers face to face? It puts a new meaning on Freshers' flu ...

This blog post explaining the riskiest activities really puts it in perspective for me:

erinbromage.wixsite.com/covid19/post/the-risks-know-them-avoid-them?fbclid=IwAR39YzYQMCZpxPvfG1rqZMqraJlxw0AbEtAEv4h57QWyBsycmRkmTqhDJwc

I think we might all have to teach outside, and wearing masks!!

Not great but not too bad. Mainly DCs, DH WFH more hours than me, and firefighting (mit circs in a pandemic anyone?)
Not surprisingly I'm not getting any research done due to no time, but also no headspace, so even if the DCs are quiet/occupied I can't concentrate.
Maybe I should go back to fieldwork? Take my students out to role play in the outdoors?

Our teaching finished at the end of March so we only had a couple of weeks online. I reckon all my marking should be done within the next week and then I can get on with research (alongside redesigning modules in case we have to teach online).

We were supposed to start the next academic year in mid-September, but they’ve delayed it by 3 weeks by cutting out the 3 week exam period before Christmas.

The first semester is always intense because everything is done before Christmas, but it’s going to be even more intense. I’m having to redesign the assessment of my UG modules as exams have been abolished for next year.

I have vast amounts of marking to do online, which is much harder than on paper. It’s so much harder to flick back and forwards through project reports. I haven’t started on exams yet, but I have two honours options with 80+ students on each. I fear for my eyesight and my sanity. This is my annual marking weekend when I tray to get projects marked to clear the decks for exams. It isn’t helped by constant barrages of emails about next year’s teaching from teaching managers who clearly do not have a substantial marking load.

I hear you Chem. Up to this month, I have resisted online marking. It’s appalling for my health (eyes and back and neck). Needs must at the moment though.

My place is talking about an academic post recruitment freeze BUT is talking about employing loads of “digital advisers”. Who’ll tell us what we should do, to convert our face to face teaching to mixed mode delivery, but won’t actually do it for us, nor do any teaching, nor marking, nor academic admin.

We’ve already been told certain things are compulsory for us to go, which are usually admin staff tasks. Because admin staff “have too much to do.”

Fuck that.

In my subject we don’t do final sit down exams (students do very different sorts of times assessments) so I just gave essays and dissertations.

I’ve downloaded the pdfs to my iPad which is easier on my eyes. Then I dictate my notes on the essays etc into my phone then compose the feedback from those notes on my computer then upload to the online marking system.

The university have not provided me with any of this technology ....

We have had online marking for ages. I hate it but I'm really surprised anyone didn't!

Thank fuck that thread is finished

I’ll check back here tomorrow

We have had online marking for a few years but most people print out at least part of project reports then enter the marks online. I have around 300 pages of projects to mark and they are so much easier to read on paper. Most projects have at least one A3 diagram which has to be checked against a multi-page table of data, which is approximately a million times easier when on paper. Then there is flicking back and forwards between the group report and individual reports, never mind within reports.

I’ve never marked an exam online. That seems a total pain compared to a stack of script books. I’ll find out if it’s as horrific as I expect soon. I often want to compare different people’s answers, to make sure I’m being consistent. That isn’t too bad in a pile of scripts but having to look through electronic files for something you vaguely remember seeing sounds a nightmare.

I just had to mark a load of A1 posters (well, a load of A1 poster and one who doesn't understand how to size up so set it out on A4). No way am I printing that out!

I’m not printing anything because, unlike when I’m in the office, I can’t print A3 and printing anything takes half a lifetime and costs a fortune in ink on our geriatric printer. An A4 poster - did they use 6 point or just not say anything? Thankfully our poster sessions were done before the lockdown.

I just wish I had been to the optician before lockdown, none of my many pairs of glasses is quite right now.

They didn't say much! We didn't get them to print these out last year, either.

I do feel like butting in on the Teacher threads and saying "you really think your secondary school students are going to be submitting stuff on Teams? Here, have a stiff drink". Heck, I can't work out Teams!

We have a poster presentation day where they talk about their posters with us an industrial guests. They do peer assessment as well. It’s one of my favourite days of the year. Organising that online would have been a challenge! And they would have missed their free pizza.

That thread was bloody awful.

I'm about to start weeks and weeks of online marking, extended due to the high number of extensions.
I'm trying to take it easy as I came down with bacterial tonsillitis at the end of last week - my go to stress induced illness.

My school will be hit hard as we do recruit a high number of Chinese students however my subject has been targeted as a growth area so might actually get some investment. It's currently only me! So in addition to everything else I've been asked to come up with plans for growth and development.......which is exciting. If anything ever comes from it.

Am I alone in preferring online marking? Preferably using a pdf, so I can easily search back and forth in the document to find what I'm looking for (quicker than flipping paper for me), and use a markup tool to add highlights and comments. I don't love the current system of online marking used in my institution (where you give feedback in a browser and the whole thing goes belly-up if you lose your internet connection) but we all have the option of downloading offline copies so I do that. I have been known to sit out in the garden with my laptop on a nice day (screen in the shade) and mark student assignments/projects.

We still use paper exams but I hate them. All that lugging about scripts, atrocious handwriting, manky smells of cheap perfume/Lynx emanating from the page... no thanks. Give me typed answers on a nice clean screen anytime!

Thank fuck that thread is finished

I would love to say what I really think about that parent-child dynamic and about doing a v popular generalist humanities subject at a university obviously not invested in research. And what a first might mean there.

And about ignorance & prejudice.

Whatever the thread was I'm glad I missed it!

You are lucky, it was both pointless and infuriating.

I've been doing my marking nearly entirely online for a while now, so not too worried about that. Have a system for placing pieces of work on various areas of desktop if I want to compare and look across. I'm actually looking forward to typed exam essays rather than trying to squint at handwriting.

In September, I'm worried about advising meetings - I usually have ~100 1-to-1 meetings. Some students won't be there, but will I still be expected to get in close proximity to as many of my advisees who come? I have underlying health issues but not enough to get a gov't letter. The prospect is making me nervous, but I also don't know what else they'd do - unless they let us do those online.

I'm actually looking forward to typed exam essays rather than trying to squint at handwriting.

I do like marking the special arrangements exams for this reason. Sometimes it makes it so much quicker to work out they have zero clue, sometimes it makes it a joy to read!

I have many fewer meetings (probably 20 or so) but I was assuming that the pastoral ones would be on Teams etc. but some are tech type skills that are really hard to deliver online.

Yes, Chem but it had a morbid fascination, and a lesson in sophistry. We were all very helpful, but that was thrown in our faces!

Re online marking: I mark essays, and I find reading a lot of text on my screen really difficult, both for my eyes, and for my comprehension. So I downloaded PDFs to my iPad, and I find that is much easier.

But as a technology, I still prefer paper.

I have underlying health issues but not enough to get a gov't letter.

Ditto (asthma & hypertension, plus over 60 ), both well-controlled by medication in normal circumstances. These are not normal circumstances! And young people may well be 'superspreaders' - asymptomatic, but infectious.

The prospect is making me nervous, but I also don't know what else they'd do - unless they let us do those online.
I think this is what will happen.

Every Department/programme is going to need to do some serious risk assessment. Have you seen this?

The Risks: Know Them-Avoid Them

Makes teaching look like one of the more risky activities ...

I'm also in the flu jab group as is DH.

It's interesting that none of the layout/configuration cases are of school or university classrooms, where in schools (and if you log in to a computer, lab classes in universities) you usually know where people sit so can do something similar.
I have said I'll be happy to do:
Online lectures as long as they can be live (it's not the recording I'm bothered about, it's the university stealing my IP, and the ability of students to ask questions and interact).
Some online seminars (the idea that "younger staff can take our seminars" is ridiculous at 3rd year where they take my modules purely because I am teaching it).
Some well-spaced out in person seminars/labs so I can demo techniques and allow students to use objects that they need to know how to use - as long as I'm not expected to be in my office most of the time and can do must consultations online.

Our online exams are handwritten, it’s too difficult to type maths and there are a lot of diagrams to draw which take ages longer if not hand sketched.

Our online lectures can’t be only live, otherwise it’s unfair to overseas students who can’t be expected to become nocturnal.

I agree about the idea of other staff taking over final year specialist course activities. When I pointed out that I have a huge load of marking and admin it was suggested that someone else mark the exam, which is just not possible, unless they can somehow accumulate 20 years of experience in the area first.

That awful thread. I read it with my mouth open, couldn't bring myself to comment any further. Some people really loathe teachers/academics don't they?

Anywayyyy. In the depths of online marking here, which I hate fucking turnitin but am hoping for a few sunny days this week so at least I can drag the laptop into the garden and get cracking.

We had a Faculty-wide meeting last week about the plans for online delivery. I was Not Reassured. It wouldn't be so bad if it was a case of revamping/repurposing stuff we have already taught several times over, but our new curriculum was only approved a week before shutdown. So we're writing 5 entirely new modules on top of everything else. It's...challenging. Plus, who knows when our students will be allowed back into placement, or into the labs?

But y'know we don't care, do we??